16 February 2009 Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Dawn of War II reviewDev: RelicPub: THQPlatform: PCRating: M

JUNGOnce upon a time, according to urban legend, Blizzard approached Games Workshop to use their Warhammer IP. They were knocked back and later made Warcraft. If true, it would have been one of gaming's biggest business blunders, as Starcraft was later hailed as the best strategy game of all time.

BAJOBut whether you believe the story or not, you can't deny the similarities between the two games. Super-human marines pitted against an advanced ancient race and a swarm of hive-minded monsters. And now Starcraft 2 could be out later this year, and anyone wanting to compete with it is a lunatic. Which is why Relic have made some radical changes in Dawn of War II.

JUNGCredit where credit is due - In the last 9 years, Relic have constantly re-invented the strategy genre. First with the 3D space tactics game Homeworld, and then Dawn of War, which started the trend of faster, more intense matches. And more recently Company of Heroes, with units properly finding cover and meaningful deformation of the battlefield. So let's see if the underdogs can do it again, eh Baj?

BAJOWell in multiplayer you'll have access to all races.

JUNGThat means Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, and the one we've all been waiting for...Tyranids!

BAJOBut in single player it's all about the Space Marines. Out of 6 squads, you can bring 4 on a mission, forcing you to choose your strengths, such as the devastator marines, who specialise in heavy weapon suppressive fire, or the assault marines, who can rocket jump behind enemy lines and force a melee engagement.

JUNGOn top of that, each squad is customisable. Squad leaders never die, and as they level up, you choose which skills of theirs to grow. Typical RPG stuff, and it doesn't stop there some enemies will drop gear that you can wear too.

BAJOYeah and the different bits of armour and weapons all have stats of their own, like +damage to orcs, or +10 hitpoints. I like this sort of change of direction Jung, it's kind of addictive

JUNGI hated it dude. Wargear IS a part of the 40k universe but I felt like I was playing Diablo II or something. It's too RPG. Not enough tactics.

BAJOBut they've gotten rid of the base building, and brought in the cover system from Company of Heroes. To me it seems like it's just as tactical as Dawn of War, but you're just doing your customising before the mission starts instead of in the middle.

JUNGYeah at the start I dug that, I was leapfrogging my units forward but then you realise you don't need to, and any kind of explosion destroys cover, so why bother. You can just select everyone, right click what you want to die, and you'll be fine. And later on, when you get Terminator suits, it gets even easier.

BAJOSo you reckon it's just too easy?

JUNGNah I think it's just a bad system. Some of your abilities are literally just 'increase damage'. When would you NOT want increased damage? How about some imagination? And as you upgrade them you end up with 4 that increase damage for all surrounding units. So every fight you just cycle through the same abilities. And that's not tactical.

BAJOEvery mission does tend to be the same, as well. You choose which territory you want to attack or defend in a Risk-style campaign, and these missions you can do co-op as well. But in every mission, you just work your way up the map through idle aliens, and take on a boss at the end with 1 or 2 abilities.

JUNGAnd it's not until the last mission that you get what every Dawn of War player has been hanging out for since 2004 - waves, and waves, and waves, of Tyranids. The last mission is so good it almost equals like the worst mission in Company of Heroes.

BAJOAnd it's a fair point that Dawn of War has always been more about the multiplayer, but a surprising amount of people never get online with these games, something like 80-90%. So to have such a disappointing and short single player, I think it's about 7 hours, is still not good enough.

JUNGWhen it comes to multiplayer though, all these niggles seem to just melt away. It's a pretty radical new format, but abilities are more balanced, cover actually matters, and the micro management is tactical rather than tedious.

BAJOAgain there's no base building, just 1 protected spawn point on your side of the map. Each unit has their own little tech tree, and you customise them and level up mid-battle.

JUNGAnd there still is a degree of resource management. You'll capture requisition points which let you deploy more units, and this time around you'll capture power points as well, which you can build power plants around. This kinda forces you to you're your critical structures in the middle of the battlefield, meaning whoever has the upper hand also has a degree of vulnerability.

BAJOWhich is good too, because people forget when you get rid of base building, you also get rid of base destroying. Each faction also has 3 leaders to choose from, each with their own abilities and special units. They're effectively sub-factions, and it'll be more fun coming up with new tactics with each.

JUNGIt's the action-packed, micro-intensive 10 minute matches Dawn of War players know and love. The only time you'll get suckered into a long game is when you're evenly matched, and those are the best games.

BAJOAnd it's fair to say that when Starcraft II comes out, all of RTS is just gunna stop and play that.

JUNGYeah, especially competition play. It'll be like if you're good at America's Army, good for you, well done, but it's not Counter-Strike.

BAJOSo if we divide the 2 sides of the game up and I'll rate the single player, you rate the multiplayer. Single player was just too disappointing, not varied enough, and it's a 5.5.

JUNGYeah the 2 sides are very different, and we're yet to see how popular the multiplayer will be. But 1 things for sure, whether you're with it or against it, the community support will be there from day 1, the stuff like replays, strats, shoutcasts. I'm giving that side of the game an 8, and there will be more about the Warhammer universe later in the show, in Backwards Compatible.